BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- On May 2, 1963, more than 1,000 Birmingham children took to the streets to protest racial injustice and violence against African Americans, and to fight for equality and freedom. Hundreds were arrested and taken away on paddy wagons and school busses.

Undeterred, hundreds more returned the next day and were met by police clubs, fire hoses and dogs. The resulting black and white photographs, disseminated around the world, will forever be embedded in the city's imagery.

The protests of the Children's March of 1963 ended a week later with a promise of desegregation and protesters' release from jail. Attempts by the Birmingham Board of Education to have the participating children suspended or expelled from school were thwarted by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the board condemned for its actions. But the struggle was far from over.

BCRI's Ahmad Ward checks a display of an old Sixteenth Street Baptist Church sign at BCRI's "Marching On" exhibition.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is unveiling an exhibition that takes viewers to the Children's Movement of nearly 50 years ago. Starting today through Nov. 30, videos, images and artifacts from the institute's Oral History Project, "Marching On: The Children's Movement @ 50" will tell the story of the children's struggle through their own words and actions.

"The exhibition is set up so that visitors can experience some of what it was like to be a young African American in segregated Birmingham," said Ahmad Ward, BCRI's head of education and exhibitions. "Visitors will see how African Americans faced a system of discrimination that pervaded nearly every aspect of life; they were denied their constitutional right to vote, encountered discrimination in public housing and employment and were refused access to public spaces and facilities, and yet they refused to give up."

The use of children was not without controversy. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who trained children in nonviolent protest, argued that parents were reluctant to protest for fear of losing their jobs, so children could be more effective. But Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. maintained that the march helped bring new life to the Birmingham campaign.

"Looking back, it is clear that the introduction of Birmingham's children into the campaign was one of the wisest moves we made," King wrote in his autobiography.

The exhibition intends to show the march's far-reaching effects. Starting with a school classroom where children jumped out of windows to join the protest, the exhibition proceeds to a photograph of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act. An old neon sign from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a fence surrounding Kiddie Land Park, and a photograph of Rev. James Bevel training students about nonviolent protest are among the artifacts."The Children's March brought a new impetus to the movement, provided momentum for the March on Washington, and helped pave the way for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," said Ward.